


Vacancies

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Creepy, Dark, F/F, Minor Character Death, Misogyny, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9411167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks
Summary: Written for Firewhiskeyfic's Inauguration Edition. Not beta'd. This is pretty different to what I normally write, but the idea bugged me until I was tipsy enough to write it down and share it. I've been watchingBlack Mirror, so I blame it on that. ;-P





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Firewhiskeyfic's Inauguration Edition. Not beta'd. This is pretty different to what I normally write, but the idea bugged me until I was tipsy enough to write it down and share it. I've been watching _Black Mirror_ , so I blame it on that. ;-P

"She's quick with a quill," Fudge said to the head of the Transportation department after their meeting, as Millicent, stopped around the corner, listened. "But she's not easy on the eyes, if you know what I mean."

A ribald chuckle followed, and Millicent felt her cheeks flaming hot.

"Not like that Parkinson piece," Fudge went on, softer, so that Millicent had to hold her breath to hear. "Now that bird… I could grab her by the juicy quim and she'd bloody well let me have my way, right? Am I right?"

One of Millicent's colleagues passed her in the hall, and Fudge promptly put on his Minister voice, pitched lower for authority's sake, talking of budgets. Millicent hurried to the loo where she barricaded herself inside, just almost but not quite nauseated enough to actually sick-up.

*

At home, she threw her parchments down to see Hermione's raised brow behind her marking.

"I'm fucking _through_ ," Millicent growled.

Her wife, ensconced on the sofa, stretched out her long legs over the cushions and crossed them at the ankles. She twiddled her quill between her fingers. "What did he say this time? Or was it some new policy? Hanging House-Elves for insubordination perhaps?"

"He… He… It was about… me," Millicent confessed, anger quickly following the wave of shame. Anger _because_ of the shame she felt.

Hermione looked up. She watched the flush that stole over Millicent's skin, reading her. Very little about Hermione's face changed. Just a tightening of the crows' feet at the edges of her eyelids. "Oh," she said, and went back to her students' papers.

"I'm bloody resigning!" Millicent said, throwing off her work robes and going for a stiff drink.

"Good," Hermione said blandly.

Millicent frowned. It wasn't like Hermione not to get enraged by Fudge's behaviour.

"And I'm filing a complaint," Millicent added, swirling her drink in its glass.

"You should." Hermione licked the nib of her quill and scratched out a mark on the parchment.

"All right then," Millicent said, frowning still further. "I'm… going to bed I guess."

"Mm."

"Will you be along shortly?"

"Yes, shortly," Hermione said distractedly.

"Well… goodnight."

Hermione turned slightly softened eyes on her. "Goodnight, my love."

Millicent leaned down to press a kiss to her wife's lips and then made her way to their bedroom.

*

It was the middle of the night. Cold. Which was odd because Hermione was like clockwork with the Warming charms. Millicent reached out across the expanse of the bed and felt… nothing. She lifted her head in confusion, the one word barely making it past her fatigued lips. "Herm?"

But then she heard the water running in the bathroom and breathed a sigh, laying her head back down. She'd wait for Hermione to return to bed and then ask if she'd do a new charm. Millicent was crap at charms. But sleepiness dragged her down, and before the water even shut off, Millicent was out.

*

It was all over the morning papers. The blood. His dead eyes frozen in fear, viewing the last thing he saw in perpetuity.

"Oh my God," Millicent breathed, looking from the _Prophet_ to the face of her wife as she sipped her coffee at the breakfast table. "Hermione! Have you seen?"

"What? Oh yes. Horrific."

"It's Fudge!" Millicent exclaimed. "It's my bloody _boss_! He's…"

"Dead. I saw."

"He's _murdered_ ," Millicent clarified, because it didn't seem as if Hermione really understood. She sipped from her steaming mug again, her eyes glued on the Society page of all things. "Hermione! He's been murdered! It says it was _Sectumsempra_. Some time in the middle of the night. In his own office at the Ministry." She gaped at the page. Then after a moment, "Hermione, are you even listening?"

Hermione blinked and set down the paper. She turned blank eyes to Millicent. Millicent blinked at her. She shook the paper in her hands emphatically. Hermione simply continued to stare, an odd coldness in it, like she could be affected by nothing.

A sick dread crept up Millicent's stomach into her throat. She swallowed against it. "I… I didn't hear you get up last night."

The blank, calm stare.

And yet it couldn't… It simply couldn’t be.

"Have trouble sleeping then?" And she knew how odd, how off, how _wrong_ it was to be talking about _that_ of all things when her boss had bled out on his own thousand Galleon Indian rug only hours ago.

_Hours when the bed was vacant._

And still that cold, calm, immovable stare.

"Herm… where did you go?"

The lift of an eyebrow.

"Bloody hell, Herm, where did you go?" Millicent's pulse leapt horribly into her ears. Tears sprang into her eyes. "What did you _do_?"

Hermione then lifted her chin. "I'm sure I don't have the first idea what you're talking about."

They stared at each other for a moment – Millicent with her hands beginning to tremble around the paper in her hands, Hermione's quite steady. And then Hermione dropped her gaze to the Society section again.

Millicent felt her stomach coil up in a knot she felt sure she'd never be able to ease.

And then, on the heels of these unthinkable thoughts, a more unthinkable one.

Relief.

_Relief._

Hermione turned a page of the paper almost sedately. Millicent pivoted and walked on unsteady legs to the coffee pot. She poured herself a cup, only spilling a little.


End file.
